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Howdy, my name is Mike Furth. I spend my days editing stuff for TV/web and nights inking comic books. Recently I got my big break, an 8 page story for Marvel featuring Spiderman. While I was working on that I realized that my inking process was slowly changing over time. These days I use my mac to communicate differently with the other members of the team, I polish pages in photoshop, I add ink splatter using a wacom tablet instead of a toothbrush. Which made me face facts, things would continue to change and evolve and, most shockingly, that there was no record of these changes. The techniques and technologies behind making comics are at best ill-documented and at worst never caught on film at all. That does not have to be. This defines the purpose of this endeavor, to create an archive, an active time capsule that I can continually add to, that makes sure that the way in which comics have been made and are made presently, is never lost to time. This is The Comic Archive.

I am setting out to document the comics creation process from the first little inkling in a creator's mind, to the point at which the finished product is in a reader's hands; and then take all that and put it online as an open and easily accessible library of videos for both casual interest and professional tips. This will happen in a combination of formal interviews that I conduct, self-made interviews by professionals using Flip style cameras on loan from the site and user created videos submitted to the site. That last part has a huge meaning to the site. With visitors called on to actively participate, the library will be a combination of archive and communal social event. The hope is that we share with the world just how much goes into comic book art--from the sense of motion to the windows on the buildings in the background. There's a world of artists out there, and techniques unique to each and every one. Let's create an archive to preserve, share and advance the art of comics with this website, from pencillers to colorists.

At this point in time some interviews have been shot (Steve Niles, Richard Starkings, Dan Brereton, Simon Fraser, Tim Bradstreet, Marc Deering) but that only made me face the fact that I can't do this without some money behind it. What I need are the funds to start paying for things like web designers, hosting and equipment to film with. Right now is a turning point for comics. Soon the process will change completely and I want to make sure we have a record of the old ways before they are no longer present.